Shrimp Enchiladas with Spinach and Goat Cheese

There are days when I crave an enchilada oozing with melted cheddar and covered with red sauce. But then there are days (and enchiladas) like this, and they’re just as delicious.

Shrimp Enchiladas with Spinach and Goat Cheese 
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 medium yellow onion, diced
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 7-ounce can diced green chiles
1 pound raw shrimp, peeled and deveined, tails removed, chopped
6 ounces baby spinach, chopped
1 28-ounce can green chile enchilada sauce
3 ounces chevre (soft goat cheese)
12 corn tortillas
2 cups grated Monterey jack cheese
Fresh chopped cilantro, for garnish

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Heat olive oil in large skillet over medium heat. Add garlic, onions, cumin and oregano and sauté until tender, about 3 or 4 minutes. Add shrimp and chiles and cook until shrimp are pink. Remove from heat and stir in spinach. Use a butter knife or spoon to crumble the chevre over the shrimp mixture.

Warm enchilada sauce in a saucepan over medium heat. Ladle enough enchilada sauce to lightly coat the bottom of a 9-by-13 glass baking dish. To assemble each enchilada, dip a tortilla in sauce until lightly coated, add a scoop of the shrimp mixture to the center of the tortilla, roll the tortilla and place, seam side down, in prepared baking dish. Top with remaining enchilada sauce and grated Monterey jack, cover with foil, and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until cheese has melted. Remove from oven, garnish with cilantro, and serve.

Vegetarian? Swap out the shrimp for a pound of sliced cremini mushrooms!

White chili recipe a trusty fave

I’ve been rocking this chili recipe for years but have yet to share it on this blog … until now! If you like a spicier chili, swap out the cheddar for more pepper jack.

Turkey White Bean Chili 
1 large white onion, chopped
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 pound ground turkey
8 ounces diced green chiles
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
5 15-ounce cans cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
4 cups chicken broth
1 cup shredded pepper jack cheese
1 cup shredded cheddar
Salt and pepper, to taste

 In a large pot over medium heat, combine onion, garlic and ground turkey, stirring occasionally and sautéeing for roughly 10 minutes, or until the turkey is brown. Add the chiles, cumin, oregano and cinnamon and sauté for five more minutes.

Puree two cans of the beans with three cups of the chicken broth in a food processor. Pour the puree in the pot along with the remaining beans and broth. Simmer for 10 minutes. Stir in the cheese and simmer for another five minutes before serving. Possible garnishes include green onions, chopped cilantro, sliced avocado, sour cream and tortilla chips.

Crafting something special out of cabbage craving

 They were practically giving away cabbage last month just in time for St. Patrick’s Day. It got me thinking about how I could go for a plate heaped high with cabbage rolls, the kind stuffed with ground meat, rice and all kinds of savory herbs and covered with a tangy tomato sauce. This soup is inspired by my craving. Think of it as a broth-y deconstruction of that delicious dish. Cabbage makes for a great soup ingredient — it doesn’t take long to cook, and it seems to hold up pretty well in hot pot.

A note on the rice — I used converted brown rice because I already had some in the cabinet due to a recipe I tried out a while back. I imagine 3/4 cups cooked rice, stirred in with the cabbage, would also work.

Stuffed Cabbage Soup
1 large onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 pound ground turkey
8 cups chicken broth
½ cup converted brown rice
1 (14 ounce) can diced tomatoes
2 cups shredded green cabbage
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried parsley
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
Salt and pepper, to taste

Combine onion, garlic and ground turkey in large soup pot. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until meat is brown. Add thyme, oregano and parsley and cook for another minute before adding broth, rice, tomatoes and Worcestershire sauce to pot. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat, stir in cabbage and cover, simmering for a few minutes until cabbage is tender. Season with salt and pepper.

Stew shakes off the shivers

It’s been quite chilly the past few days, even if we didn’t get the low snow everyone was buzzing about all week.
I wanted to make something hearty and low-
maintenance for dinner and decided to give beef stew a try.

This recipe is inspired by something I read the “Slow & Easy” slow-cooker book I have on loan from the library. I call it Beef Stew for Two because the ingredients didn’t take up my entire Crock-Pot. The recipe yields enough for two hefty servings, plus leftovers.

I put all the ingredients in my Crock-Pot before making breakfast to ensure plenty of time so the beef would be nice and tender. I like my stew thick like gravy and with lots of chunky goodness, and I ended up making a quick roux of flour and melted butter (2 tablespoons each) to thicken the stew about an hour before serving. I’ll be sure to add mushrooms the next time I make this stew.

Beef Stew for Two
1 pound chuck roast, fat trimmed and cut into 1-inch cubes
1 ½ cups chopped carrots
1 ½ cups chopped celery
½ yellow onion, diced
1 pound Russet potatoes, cut into small cubes
¼ cup flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 cup beef broth
½ cup dry red wine
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
2 bay leaves

In a 3.5-quart electric slow cooker, mix together carrots, celery, onion, potatoes, broth, wine, Worcestershire sauce and bay leaves.

Place flour, salt, pepper and meat in large resealable bag. Seal and toss until beef is coated. Empty bag’s contents into slow cooker. Cover and cook on low setting for 7-8 hour, until beef and potatoes are tender. Remove bay leaves before serving.

I've got the hots for Creole seasoning

Red bell peppers were on sale, as was sausage, and I craved a tomato-y sauce. Here’s what I came up with — a quick dinner packed with smoke and sass thanks to the Creole seasoning I love because it tastes good in just about everything.

Creole Sausage and Brown Rice
14-ounce smoked turkey sausage, diced
1 teaspoon olive oil
2 cups diced celery
1 medium yellow onion, diced
1 14.5-ounce can diced tomatoes with green chiles in juice
1 14.5-ounce can black beans, rinsed and drained
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 red bell peppers, seeded and diced
2 teaspoons Creole seasoning
Cooked brown rice, about 1 ½ cups per serving

Warm olive oil over medium-high heat in large frying pan. Add garlic and onions and cook, stirring frequently, for a couple minutes. Add celery and cook an additional couple minutes before adding bell peppers. Cook vegetables for another minute. Reduce heat to medium and stir in diced tomatoes, Creole seasoning and sausage. Let simmer for a few minutes, until sausage heated through. Spoon over rice and serve.

Don't be a chicken -- making stock's easy

One chicken can go a long way.

I picked up a five-pound bird for little more than $4 at the supermarket and roasted it the other day. I’m pretty new to roasting chickens, but I try to swing by the store when they’ve got whole birds on sale. Practice makes perfect, right?

Normally I’ll pick over the chicken after dinner, saving all the meat and throwing the etcetera into the trash can. This time, I saved all the odds and ends for my first attempt at making chicken stock.

The following is what I came up with after reading about a dozen different recipes. Barbara Kafka’s “Soup: A Way of Life” and Jamie Oliver’s “The Naked Chef” were good resources.

I also factored in a couple tips from friends. Kimmy told me to reserve the post-roasting pan juices, which I did, pouring into a ceramic dish and refrigerating overnight. It was really easy, using a soup spoon, to scrape the solid layer of fat off the top. Everything else went into the pot when I was ready to start the stock. I also employed Colleen’s suggestion, encasing my herbs in four stalks of celery, kept together with kitchen string to create a sort of veggie baton that helped keep the herbs intact instead of floating around, creating less little floaters to strain out.

Chicken Stock
18 cups water
Carcass from a five-pound chicken (I picked as much meat off of the bones as I could)
2 carrots, chopped
4 stalks celery, washed and edges chopped
3 sprigs rosemary
6 sprigs thyme
1 large white onion, cut into eighths
2 bay leaves
Salt, to taste

Throw everything but salt into a stock pot and bring to a boil, making sure you’ve got enough water to keep the carcass and vegetables submerged. Use spoon to skim fat and other residue off the top; discard. Lower heat and simmer gently, covered, for at least four hours. Remove from heat. Pour stock through a fine mesh strainer into a large bowl or pot. Discard the solids. Salt stock to taste. Chill overnight. Remove fat from surface the next day.

I wanted to make something homey with my first batch of stock, to keep the homemade juju going in the kitchen. Chicken noodle soup sounded good, but no egg noodles in the pantry. So, I fudged my from-scratch aspirations slightly and make chicken and dumplings … with Bisquick.

Chicken and dumplings
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 medium white onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups chopped carrots
3 cups chopped celery
1 teaspoon Herbes de Provence
10 cups chicken stock
4 cups cooked, shredded chicken
2 cups Bisquick
2/3 cups milk
1 teaspoon dried thyme

Heat oil in a large pot over medium flame. Add garlic, stirring for about a minute before adding onion. Cook for a couple minutes, until fragrant and slightly translucent. Add carrots, celery and Herbes de Provence, cooking for a minute or two before adding stock and chicken to pot. Bring to a boil. Combine Bisquick, milk and thyme in a bowl. Use spoon to create walnut-sized dough balls. Drop dough into the boiling pot, cooking uncovered for 10 minutes. Reduce heat, cover and cook for an additional 10 minutes.